Panel video to be placed here.
NB! All comments from the audience are removed to secure privacy.
Panel discussion:
Dr Marjo-Riitta Antikainen, University of Helsinki
Prof. Louise Nyholm Kallestrup, University of Southern Denmark
Dr Sari Katajala-Peltomaa, Tampere University
Prof. Piroska Nagy, Université du Québec à Montréal
Dr Reima Välimäki, University of Turku
Chair: Prof. Raisa Maria Toivo, Tampere University/HEX & Dr. Jenni Kuuliala, Senior Research Fellow, Tampere University/HEX
The question of agency is crucial yet challenging for the study of lived religion. Agency has often been defined in very secular terms, as freedom to behave in any self-willed way, or as individual autonomy. However, as pointed out by scholars such as Phyllis Mack or Jörg Rüpke, within the concept of lived religion the definitions and meanings of agency are much more versatile. As lived religion understands faith not as a theological dogma or a top-down phenomenon but as a sphere where people performed their selves and were in contact with their community members as well as with divine agents, such autonomy is not necessarily a fruitful point of analysis, nor even a possibility. Instead, religious agency always occurs in relation with the spiritual being the person in question wanted to communicate with, and this communication could reinforce or decrease human agency. Simultaneously, the divine agents had agency of their own which was interpreted and responded to by the communities.
This virtual roundtable will discuss the concept of agency within the study of lived religion, from a longue-durée perspective and varying viewpoints to lived religion. We will approach agency and lived religion particularly in the framework of experience, and question the possibilities and pitfalls of the concept.
To read the panelists’ bios, please click on the names below:
Dr Marjo-Riitta Antikainen
Prof. Louise Nyholm Kallestrup
Dr Sari Katajala-Peltomaa
Prof. Piroska Nagy
Dr Reima Välimäki
Introductory videos
Louise Nyholm Kallestrup power point presentation
Piroska Nagy power point presentation
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I enjoyed the panel discussion very much. It prompted me to watch in the evening on Amazon Prime, Mark Fielder’s (2012) documentary War on Witches. This followed on nicely from the panel, as I saw in the documentary the desire of Christian structures to remove other spiritual powers, then the conflict between Roman Catholics and Protestants increasing the desire for pure structures and space, and Protestants viewing Catholics as witches, all adding to an environment of actively destroying ‘witches.’ The documentary adds an account of personal paranoia of a Scottish/English king, who through experiences in Denmark, formulated his ideas on spirits in books so that others could put them into practice – even with a legacy until the present. Indeed, the panel got me thinking, that although we do not witness today people being burned at the stake or wheeling, we can witness the same conceptual structures at play. The treatment of single mothers in my living memory in the UK, and especially Ireland. The antisemitism and present xenophobia of Christian ethnonationalists. Indeed, the ‘demonizing’ of races. I have heard testimony of Roma Christians being treated discriminately in Finland, and new Christian immigrants being turned away by churches, and denied by immigration officials. Repeatedly we hear accounts of authorities taking away children from parents to civilize, Christianize, nationalize and remove the culture and spirituality of their parents – Saami, aborigines, Jews, etc. I have personally experienced in Finland harassment and verbal attacks for being non-Lutheran, although I am a Christian. The dilemma, therefore, is that in lived religion, if that is the right term, because there is a contradiction in it, that people live with multiple complexities that do not fit exactly into pure structures (religion). So that, Lutheranism is now expressed on a Yoga mat, or on a mindfulness retreat, and is shaped by clicking access to global content once thought exotic. Perhaps to the extent that one no longer feels Lutheran. This got me thinking there is an obvious tension between personal agency and religious structure; between human rights of agency of an individual and the rights of religious structures to impose static identities. So, how to develop living religion, or rather how to shape religion to work with living people? The concept religion comes out of a Christian context, yet Hebraic thinking resists being defined and rejoices in being diverse, and this root has been lost, perhaps, by noun-based Christianity. Instead of defining nouns, which is bound to reject people for being insufficient and encourage hypocrisy, we should ethically evaluate verbs – living actions. Lived religion is people doing actions, not structures, which are not necessarily living – that is with their own agency independent of people. People make the structures living.
Richard Croft
12.3.2021 16:10